


Tour Bus Confessional

by smitshappens



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: F/M, Gen, lords of the deep, mst3k live tour shenanigans, s12 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:51:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smitshappens/pseuds/smitshappens
Summary: It's a long way back to Earth, especially with mischievous robots on board. Sometimes pranks can backfire in nice ways.





	Tour Bus Confessional

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speccygeekgrrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/gifts).



> This is my attempt at a fic for speccygeekgrrl, which I hope at least partially fulfills one of your requests. It was too good of an idea, so I ran with it. It plays with the idea of X times of things taking place before something different finally happens. (I didn't quite nail everything, but I had fun and hope you like it. Sketches should hopefully be added soon!)

The distance between the Earth and the Moon was nearly 240,000 miles.  Thanks to modern technology, a trip like that would take roughly eight hours.  Early NASA standards would allow the journey to be completed in three days.

Because the Moon’s technology was sometimes hit or miss, their travel vessel, the Deep Hurting, was facing at least a week until it hit the Earth’s atmosphere.  A return to Earth was a nice idea for Jonah at first blush, but then he remembered that he and everyone else aboard were still beholden to Kinga. They’d have to follow her orders or risk some kind of painful punishment.

Or would they?  Their entire group had been escorted onto the ship and launched before Jonah had confirmation as to whether or not his plan had worked.  They were two days out and remained in apparent radio silence.

The ship was laid out like a large, futuristic tour bus, with a common area, small kitchen, and bunks stacked along the sides.  There was also a bathroom that, frankly, no one really wanted to talk about. At least they had a working shower for the humans on board.

Jonah glanced out the back window at the larger ship tethered behind them.  The Ark-3 was massive, but it had to be out of necessity. It harbored five habitats specifically made for living creatures. It was certainly nothing to sneeze at.  Jonah sighed and finished his tea, then headed toward his bunk. It was a shame that someone as brilliant as Dr. St. Phibes had been roped into this mess, as well as her traveling habitats.

~~~

“You got the thing, Crow?”

“You bet! Besides, you couldn’t hold it anyway with them little arms, Servo.”

“At least they work now!”

“Point. But still.”

The two robots carefully sneaked into the bunk area.  Crow had been smart enough to slip on a pair of socks to muffle the sound of his metal feet against the floor, while Servo ran his hoverskirt at half-thrust, just barely floating at eighteen inches to clear the air system grates.  Both of Crow’s arms were wrapped around a glass jar, filled nearly to the brim with water and harboring a jellyfish-like substance inside. He gently placed it on the floor next to Jonah’s bunk.

“I’m so glad we kept this thing,” he snickered.  “This’ll make the trip a lot more interesting.”

Tom Servo settled on the floor.  “You think we’re kinda….I dunno, being jerks by doing this?”

The gold robot paused, claws tapping together thoughtfully.  He and Tom exchanged glances.

“Naaaaah,” they chorused.

“So how’d you figure this plan out?” Servo asked.

“Easy,” Crow snorted as he pointed to Jonah’s exposed foot.  “You see this? He’s too big for the bunk, so there’s always at least one foot hanging out of the covers, while the other one’s crunched against the wall.”  He wrapped his claws around Jonah’s ankle and pulled his pajama pant leg up to his knee before easing his foot toward the jar. “He’ll either wet the bed or barf out more embarrassing confessions.”

“Either way, he’s spilling something,” Tom Servo giggled.

The instant Jonah’s toes hit the blob in the jar, he twitched in his bed and groaned.  “Once, when I was eight, I got my face stuck in a vacuum cleaner hose and sprained my tongue.”

The bots tried their best to laugh quietly.  Crow lifted Jonah’s foot out of the jar for about a minute, barely enough time to let him doze back off, then he dunked it into the blob again.

Jonah grunted and fidgeted.  “When I was four, my older brother dared me to eat dog food and I did and it wasn’t really that bad, but the neighborhood kids found out and called me Alpo Breath until I was six.”

“This is too fun,” Tom Servo cackled.

“Right?”  Crow was beaming.  “We’ll have ammunition for days.”  As before, he gave Jonah a moment before cramming his foot back into the jar.

The curtains on the bunk above Jonah’s rustled slightly, then slid back a mere peep.

Again, Jonah talked in half-sleepy tones, though his fussing in bed was getting worse.  “When I first saw Dr. Donna, I couldn’t stop thinking about her cos she’s smart and pretty and I kinda wanna kiss her, so sometimes I kiss my pillow instead so I don’t do something stupid.”  As the last words left his mouth, his eyes shot open with cold realization.

Servo let go a disappointed sigh.  “Well, we got three.”

“That’s not bad,” Crow shrugged.  “Maybe we’ll break our record one of these days.  You gotta stop sleepin’ so light, Heston.”

Jonah yanked his foot out of Crow’s grip and shoved it under the blankets as he sat up and grabbed his glasses.  “You brought the blob with you? ...Oh God,  _ you brought the blob with you _ .”

The bunk above was now wide open and Dr. St. Phibes was staring wide-eyed at the robots.

Crow’s beak rattled with uncontrollable giggles.  “The embarrassment factor is even better than I thought.”  He jabbed an elbow into Jonah’s ribs. “Your new crush heard that you kiss your pillow, loverboy.”

Every bit of color left Jonah’s face as he leaned out of his bunk just enough to lock eyes with the doctor.  He snatched his robe from the opposite side of the bed and stormed off to the common area.

The doctor’s face pulled into a hard frown and she gave both the bots a disapproving stare before clambering down from her own bunk.  As soon as her feet hit the floor, she grabbed the jar and its blob.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she scolded.  “This is a living creature and you’re using it for a joke.”

Crow rolled his eyes.  “So’s Jonah, but we do it all the time.”

“I’m taking possession of your blob,” she said firmly.  With her free hand, she nabbed her own robe from the hook outside her bunk, following Jonah with the jar cradled in her arms.

~~~

Their dictated work was a six-week tour of movie riffing on Earth.  As a bonus, it was the same two movies, over and over again. Jonah wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than the gauntlet of six solid pieces of dreck that Kinga had just subjected them to.  At least they would get a break between movies.

You know, while sharing close quarters with people who were probably incredibly embarrassed by someone else’s presence.  He sank into his seat at the dining table and kept staring out the window. He thought he could distract himself with the stars, but it didn’t help that the Ark-3 was back there.

“Maybe she’ll forget it.  Sleep talking’s dumb,” he muttered to himself.  “And it’s not like I was coherent.”

The sound of glass tapping against the tabletop broke his train of thought.  He looked to the side and saw the jar of blob as it was being slid toward him by small, dainty hands.  Dr. St. Phibes gave him a shy smile, then took a seat next to him on the bench.

“Look, I’m really really sorry about that.  The bots are kinda like terrible college roommates sometimes and--”

Donna rolled back her robe sleeve and stuck her hand into the water.  Her body froze and her eyes went wide. “When I was seven, I managed to tangle myself up in a jump rope because I couldn’t get the hang of it.  It was so bad, they had to call the Fire Brigade to cut me loose. Rumors got back to school and the kids thought I was stupid for years.” The trance ended and she pulled her hand from the jar.  She kept her eyes downcast. “Little embarrassing.”

“You were just a kid,” Jonah said reassuringly.  “We all make mistakes or do dumb stuff when we’re kids.  That’s how we learn, right?”

She pushed her hair out of her face and nodded.  She bit her lip, then dunked her hand into the jar again as Jonah looked on, almost horrified.  “When I was sixteen, I told everyone I was too sick to go to our senior dance but I really wanted to stay home and take care of these new animals I’d rescued. My mum told me I couldn’t stay at home when we’d already paid for my dress, so I tried to compromise and I was kicked out of the dance for bringing a snake as my plus-one.”  She forced her hand out of the jar and caught her breath.

“Dr. St. Phibes, you don’t have to do this,” Jonah sighed sympathetically.  “If it’s to prove a point, it’s okay. I got it. I think we’re both embarrassed enough as it is tonight.”

Determinedly, she grabbed his hand and again shoved her opposite hand into the jar one last time.  “When I first met Jonah, I was too shy to say much to him because I thought he was adorable as a pile of puppies and might not want to talk to me because I’m weird and obsessed with animals.  But when he’s not looking, sometimes I take a sneaky peep at his butt and hope he doesn’t catch me.”

This time, Jonah forced her hand out of the blob’s grip and stared at her, face flushed.  He couldn’t even make his brain conjure up any kind of response. That particular confession was a lot for him to take in.  He finally spoke and all he could say was her name. “ _ Donna _ .”

She peered at him over the top of her glasses.  “Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed my luck.” She took hold of the jar and began sliding it and herself out of the bench seat.  “I can put it in the tank with the Lady of the Deep. She should take to it like a mother and it’ll be fine.”

Jonah gently took hold of her elbow.  “Donna, it’s okay.” His smile was crooked and he scratched at the back of his head with his other hand.  “You...you really think that?”

A shock of Donna’s wild hair fell into her face.  “Well...yes. What you said, is that true?”

Jonah nodded somewhat earnestly.  “Yeah. I’m sorry you had to hear it that way.  I’d have rather taken my chances by, y’know, asking about a date and then being inevitably shot down.”

She frowned at him.  “What makes you think I’d do that?”

“My luck,” Jonah shrugged.  “Not to mention my experience.  It’s not easy trying to make connections, especially when you’re in space.”

Donna smiled and exited the bench seat, blob in tow.  She marched it to the corner of the common room, where her Lady specimen was quietly sleeping in her small travel tank.  “You were almost married once, I understand.”

“Hooboy, yeah, that was a close one.  I’ve never been so glad to have been swallowed by a monster in my life.”  Jonah slid out of the seat and joined Donna at the tank.

“It’s kind of Biblical, that,” the doctor commented lightly, “you being Jonah and all.”

He gave a small laugh.

Donna raised the jar over the edge of the travel tank.  “You want to help me put this little guy in with his new mum?  I’m hoping maybe she’ll forgive me for the egg incident. I’m a bit tired of visions of my own death.”

“Whoa.”

“Job risk,” she said with a shrug.  “If I could get you to take the other side of this jar, we can ease him in gently and she won’t get angry.  She’s a tad temperamental.”

“Got it,” Jonah nodded.  Together, they held onto the blob’s jar and slowly sank it into the water.  The Lady barely stirred at first, not noticing the smaller jellyfish-thing as it crawled out of the receptacle and floated freely in the tank.

“Step two,” Donna whispered nervously, “is getting the jar back out without bothering her.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“Don’t you dare speak too soon, Jonah.”

Slowly, gently, carefully, they began raising the jar up from the tank, tipping it sideways at first to avoid bringing up more water.  They were very nearly in the clear when Jonah managed to barely tap the edge of it against the glass.

The Lady’s eyes jolted open, glowing a full bright red.  She stared at Donna and opened her mouth, hissing...then she spotted the new little blob working its way gleefully around the tank.  The glow in her eyes lessened and she nuzzled it, quickly taking it under her fins. The two humans froze, then Donna gave a nod to Jonah to keep trying to get that jar out of the water.  The Lady caught them yet again, eyes ablaze, and clamped her mouth down on both their fingers.

Jonah’s head was a blur of fast-moving images, though thankfully none of them seemed to be of his demise.  He saw colors and cities, giant talking brains and pig men, robots in costumes, shots of Red Bull, and then finally, Donna.  He was kissing her.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself right in her face, noses almost touching. He broke away quickly, nearly dropping the jar in which the blob had resided.  “Oh, yikes--I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

Donna stood at the tank’s edge, one hand still barely brushed the water.  The Lady bumped her palm with her snout and took her new charge back to the opposite side of the tank, where she snuggled down with it happily. 

“You saw what I did, didn’t you?” the doctor gasped.  “You had the same visions.”

Jonah held onto that jar as if his life depended on it.  Here he had known this woman only a handful of days, had to spend weeks with her on this tour, as well as work with her, and he’d managed to nearly make a horrid mistake under the influence of a telekinetic sea creature.  “Please let me know what I can do to make up for this. I’m sorry, I really am.”

Donna smiled, almost relieved.  “She took away the visions of death.”  Her exasperated sighs became laughs. “I’m forgiven!  She’s not mad anymore!”

“Will the baby blob be okay?  Poor guy’s been through a lot.”

“Ohh yes, he’ll be just grand,” Donna triumphantly replied.  “Lords and Ladies of the Deep are excellent parents. They’ll take in the orphans of the pods and raise them as their own.  By the time we’re done with this tour, he’ll be big enough to release into the Tropical habitat.”

Jonah brightened at the news, then his heart plummeted straight to his feet.  “Yeah, the tour.” He put the empty jar on the dining table and practically threw himself into his seat, holding his head in his hands.  “We haven’t even reached Earth yet and already I’ve wrecked everything for you.”

“We were both a touch spellbound,” Donna said, gently patting him on the back.  “It’s been quite a night for us all, I think.” She stooped enough to see his face through his fingers.  “This is the most unusual first date I’ve ever had, Jonah.”

He sat straight up.  “Wait, what? First date?”

Donna pushed him aside and took her seat next to him again.  “That’s what I’m calling it, anyway. I should apologize to you, too. I didn’t think to warn you soon enough about the Lady.  She’s very powerful. She can torment you or compel you to do things you normally wouldn’t. I’m sorry I was in your space like that.  I’m not typically one to get in someone’s face… I mean, I’m actually rather shy about...things like that. Then she put the thought in my head and--”

“It’s nice that we’re both filled with guilt,” Jonah deadpanned.  “What a delightful experience for us to share.”

Donna patted his hand, then wrapped her fingers around it.  “You helped me rehome a wayward blob. You saw its first interaction with its new mother.  We both escaped that without any lasting damage. If we had failed, we’d both be writhing in pain and bleeding from the eyes!”  She was positively beaming.

Jonah blanched.  “How do you say that so cheerfully?”

She shrugged her shoulders as if it was nothing.  “It’s part of my line of work.”

Jonah shook it off, thankful they had survived the risk taken.  He groaned. “We found out we’re both harboring some terrible, embarrassing memories that no one should have privilege to.”

“We found out we like each other.”  Donna leaned her head against his upper arm.  “That’s not terrible at all.”

“You were supposed to be shocked and disgusted by the big nerd kissin’ his pillow!” Crow called from the doorway.  He stomped his feet for effect, but the socks he wore dampened the sound into low thumps.

Donna narrowed her eyes at both of the bots.  “You didn’t take into account that this equation included  _ two _ nerds, did you?”

Crow merely crossed his arms and huffed.  Tom Servo, again running on full hoverskirt power, patted his shoulder.  “C’mon, Crow, we’ll think of something else.”

The gold bot ran to the table and seized the empty jar in both hands.  “What’d you do with Blobby?! You didn’t flush him, did you? JONAH, DID YOU FLUSH MY BLOB?”

“No, Crow, I didn’t,” Jonah answered firmly.  “Dr. Donna said you two weren’t being very nice to him, so she gave him a new home.”  He nodded at the small travel tank in the corner. “He’s got a mom now.”

Crow wandered to the tank, face as disappointed as it could get for a robot.  “Aw nuts. I wanted to try it on Synthia next.”

“The blobbulus deepicus is not a tool for a prank,” Donna advised.  “It’s a living creature. I’ll forgive you this once, but don’t let me catch you doing anything like that again.”

“I don’t get what the problem is,” Crow whined as he tapped at the glass.  “It’s just a weird jellyfish thing that--AAAAUGH!”

The Lady had awakened again and locked gazes with the bot, eyes bright red.  Crow shrank away from the tank and immediately grabbed Tom Servo in a hug.

“Tommy, I don’t wanna spend another 500 years alone ever again!”

Dr. St. Phibes raised a curious eyebrow.  “Apparently, your robots have enough organic material in their systems to register with her.  Maybe he’s learned a lesson.”

“Ehh, not likely.”

“Next date, let’s try something different and less life threatening,” Donna laughed sheepishly.  “And maybe get to know each other better without the aid of psychic monsters.”

“Good plan.  I’d recommend a movie, but...well, you know how that goes for me.”

“Stargazing is just as well and a lot quieter.”  She looked up at him, eyes heavy-lidded. “I could always show you the Ark-3 once we stop.”

“That’d be... _ pretty nice _ .”  He couldn’t help himself.

Donna chuckled and swatted at his arm, then tugged at his pajama collar.  “Is it okay if we...um…”

“Only if you want to.”

“It’s bound to be better than a pillow.”  She smirked and gave him a wink before their lips met.  It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was a first kiss and it was enough.

“Gross.”  Crow gagged and carried Tom Servo out with him.  “C’mon, Tommy, let’s go back to bed before those two get to suckin’ face or whatever.”

Tom could be heard crooning down the hallway as they left.  “ _ When lo-ving lo-vers looooove… _ ”

Donna’s cheeks were tinged bright pink.  “Would you like to try again without the audience?”

“I think, um, well,” Jonah stammered and fidgeted with his glasses, pushing them back into place on his nose.  “I think I’d like that.”

 


End file.
